RIP Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley Dies At 79
Bo Diddley, recently ranked third in our list of the 20 Greatest Chicago Guitarists Of All Time, died Monday, June 2nd, at his Florida home.
Diddley’s impact on popular music far outweighed, as he frequently lamented, his checkbook. Still, his effect cannot be overstated. The sound he created loomed as large as his hulking physique, appropriately emanating from oddly constructed, otherworldly homemade guitars over, as our M.S. Dodds wrote in April, that beat.
While he cut his teeth on Maxwell Street and recorded for Chess, Diddley didn’t fit the Chicago blues archetype. Certainly, in his ’50s heyday the blues was as exciting and expansive as ever, but he was fixated on rhythms and sounds — some of which had distinct Afro derivations and others were simply new. The “bomp a-bomp bomp/bomp bomp” powering “Bo Diddley” and “I’m A Man” was blues-based but purely rock ‘n’ roll in effect. Adapted as a locomotive’s chug, its rife sexuality helped sustain the nascent genre through the lean years of teen idols, folk’s revival, and Elvis in Germany.
The ’60s left Diddley on the doorstep, but the beat remained and provided hits for The Who (“Magic Bus”), U2 (“Desire”), Bruce Springsteen (“She’s The One”), and George Thorogood (“Who Do You Love?”). The Rolling Stones’ cover of Buddy Holly’s “Not Fade Away” — one of the first white rock tunes to crib Diddley’s stomp — was the band’s first charting single in the U.S. There will only be one M.A.N., though.
— Steve Forstneger
